This morning we arrived in Luxor and started our tour at the crack of dawn, thanks to Ashraf being an early bird. We would thank him later for keeping us out of the hell which was the Valley of the Kings at noon! Aside from the heat the Valley of the Kings and the Queens was very cool! You could walk through these very colorful tombs that are built way underground which have many chambers including the tombs of some of the phararohs, namely Ramses the I, IV, and VIIII. We couldn't take pictures. Unfortunately, there are beggars that hang out in the sites handing out pieces of cardboard (to be used as fans) and "offering" "information" on the sites. But what they are really doing is just pointing at the only thing that there is to look at in the hole, the tomb, and saying something in Arabic. As the tourists who fall for this are leaving the tomb, the beggars will then feel that you own them money and then follow you around demanding it. We found that the best thing to do is just tell them "No!!!" as soon as they approach you. We even started switching languages to confuse them and to try and better the name of Americans a weeee bit

. So, I would speak Spanglish to Tara and she would just look at them and say "Nine!!" That oughta confuse them! If you are checking out the pics the two huge statues are built by Memunoh. After the Sun had cooled a bit we visited the largest Temple in Egypt, the Karnak Temple. It was built for the God Ra and another famous one was the Luxor Temple. Check out the pic of the last supper painted over hieroglyphics and next to a mosque at this one...very cool! It is the only place in the world that contains remnants of the three religions: Christianity, Islam, and Amen-Ra (the Egyptian Sun God). We were feeling a little bit homesick during a lot of our time in Egypt, mainly because it is just such an indescribably different place. Luckily, we met some very nice people on our Nile cruise ship that were kind enough to invite us to sit with them for meals. By the end of our trip we had a little Egypt-family of our own. It was very nice and made us feel a little bit more at home. We get to look forward to one more meal tonight and then we get back on the death-train back to Cairo, so we are pumped about that.